More first-time buyer mortgages were approved in the first 11 months of 2025 than ever before, the Banking and Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI) said.
A total of 30,124 such mortgages was approved between January and November, the highest since the industry lobby group began to collect such data in 2011.
The value of the mortgage approvals was €9,796 million, more than four times higher than the same period in 2015 when €2,432 million of such loans were approved, the BPFI said in its mortgage approvals report for November.
Overall mortgage approvals totalled 49,760 in the first 11 months of last year, with a value of €15.8 billion.
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BPFI chief executive Brian Hayes said there were 4,251 mortgage approvals last November with overall values at €1,354 million. But volumes declined by 3.4 per cent and values were down by 0.8 per cent against November 2024.
First-time buyers accounted for €822 million, or 60.7 per cent of mortgages last November, and mover-purchasers made up 23.8 per cent of mortgages by value at €323 million.
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The report also reveals how fewer people sought mortgages for moving homes than at any point in the past decade: just 9,634 such loans were approved in the first 11 months of 2025, the lowest year-to-date level since 2015.
“Nevertheless, values rose to more than €3.6 billion over the same period, the highest year-to-date values since the data series began”, as housing prices influence the value of such mortgages.
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Separately, property firm DNG has predicted house prices will keep rising this year. In its latest residential market review, DNG said low- to mid-single digit increases should be expected throughout 2026.
This follows “sustained increases” in 2025, with DNG recording a 7.4 per cent growth in the sale price of the average second-hand home outside Dublin last year, which came after an 8.4 per cent increase in 2024.
Growth in house prices last year was recorded across all regions in Ireland with the largest inflation in the midwest at 9.9 per cent.
Dublin had a slightly slower rate of growth at 5.2 per cent, a slowing of growth against 9.6 per cent the previous year.
DNG expects house prices in the capital to increase by 3 per cent to 4 per cent this year, with greater inflation outside of Dublin “due to the continued lack of new homes available to purchase by private buyers”.
DNG director of research Paul Murgatroyd said there had been a “welcome moderation in the rate of house price inflation” in 2025 compared to the previous year.
“Looking ahead, positive demographic trends, the current low-interest-rate environment and a solid economic backdrop all point toward another year of price inflation in the residential market,” he said.
Although “supply is gradually increasing, it is by no means at a level to satisfy demand in the market which means prices will continue to rise across the country”.
